


I Danced All Around You Somehow

by Prevalent_Masters



Series: Buen Viaje 'verse [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Background Les Amis de l'ABC, Christmas Fluff, F/F, F/M, Polyamory, Threesome - F/F/M, but it's all good in the end!, christmas magic!, idiots in love round two, warning: abuse and depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevalent_Masters/pseuds/Prevalent_Masters
Summary: She's a selfish person, she knows this, always has. She takes what she can get from situations and molds it, like a potter with their clay, into something she can use to her advantage. She's not ashamed of it. But here, for a moment, she feels briefly guilty. How many months has she wasted in jealousy and anger over Cosette and Marius when really, she should have just been happy for them? She's made her choices, they've made theirs. It's a waste to be angry over the result.Or, Eponine hates and Eponine loves and Eponine pines, and maybe all she's needed for so many years is a little Christmas miracle and some love.





	I Danced All Around You Somehow

The first time they meet, Eponine hates her.  The first time they meet, she and Marius are kissing, intertwined, leaning against the first doorway she passes when she walks into the party.  Marius disengages and pulls her over, excitedly introducing his new girlfriend, and Eponine hates her. Bright-eyed, petite Cosette with her dark hair and her dark eyes, her new clothes, her blemish-free skin, her tinkle of a laugh as she responds to someone’s question about her engineering degree.  She is the antithesis of Eponine, refined and wealthy and knowledgeable and _of course_ the person Marius would pick.

She leaves quickly, goes home. Yells at Montparnasse, nurses a black eye she carefully covers with makeup the next day. Hates Cosette and hates Marius and hates them all.

 

*

Cosette works at Musichetta’s coffeeshop, the only one Eponine frequents because Chetta takes pity on her and gives her free coffee refills. This means that, for an agonizing two months after Cosette and Marius get together, she slinks by the coffeeshop every night, checking to see if Cosette is working. If she is, she goes home and reuses her teabag from that morning, willing it to brew into something she can choke down. Eventually, she memorizes Cosette’s schedule. Eventually, her visits become more and more infrequent until Chetta pulls her aside at a meeting one night and asks her if she’s doing alright. She circles her fingers around the bruise on her wrist and thinks of Cosette’s smile and says “yes, I’m fine,” and manages not to wince at the lie until Chetta turns around.

That night she yells back at Montparnasse when he yells at her about going to the meeting. “I thought you’d quit it with those idiots,” he yells, “you know if they get in trouble and you’re linked to them it could lead back to me,” and she yells back “I can do what I want, you asshole, they’re my friends,” and he says “You don’t need friends, you have me!” and she says “yeah, you’re a fat lot of good to me, aren’t you!” and then he slaps her, hard, and storms out of the house and she curls in her bed and texts Azelma not to come home and tries to imagine what Cosette is doing right now. Safe. With Marius. Making a customer some coffee. Reading a engineering textbook. Making dinner with her roommates, all of whom are Eponine’s friends, people she rarely sees outside of meetings because of Montparnasse’s raging jealousy and mistrust. How she hates her.

 

*

She doesn’t know why she puts up with it. Wasn’t this the whole reason she ran away, why she dragged Azelma away from the grips of their shitty parents, to get away from the stinging slaps and aching bruises and tears in the dark? Part of her mind reasons out of it: Montparnasse isn’t nearly as bad as their parents. Things never get _that_ physical. It’s usually because he’s drunk (so were their parents). It’s usually because he’s too forceful, not because he was planning on hurting her. It’s not bad enough for anyone else to notice, so it can’t be that bad at all. And, most importantly, he never touches Azelma. What does it matter if he hurts her, sometimes, if Azelma stays safe and away from angry fists and harsh words?

The other part of her mind knows it’s all bullshit, the excuses, the love she can’t push out of her for Montparnasse who saved her life freshman year when he said, “you should get away, you should move in with me,” the man who was, and still can be, kind and loving. It’s bullshit and she needs to leave. But that part of her mind is small, pushed down and beat into submission over and over again until it’s easy to ignore.

 

*

She’s started walking through the alleyway behind the Corinth because she can’t stand walking by the front windows and seeing Cosette at the counter. On this particular day, it’s raining as she trudges home from work and she forgot her rain jacket this morning because she wanted to get out of the house before Montparnasse woke up. Rain’s dripping in her eyes and the sounds of the drops are so loud, pinging off the metal tops of dumpsters and pouring out of storm drains, she almost doesn’t hear her name when someone calls to her.

“ _Eponine_!”

She pushes her sodden bangs out of her face and squints around, looking for the source of the voice. In the doorway of one of the buildings, the end of a cigarette glows. Her stomach drops. Some of Montparnasse’s friends work (“work”) around here. She half turns, ready to run.

The voice steps into the light, hand up to shield their face from the rain.

“You’re soaked!” Cosette says. “You should come inside, dry off a bit.”

“You smoke?” she replies dumbly, because that tidbit certainly doesn’t fit the picture of Cosette she’s carefully cultivated in the back of her mind.

Cosette looks at the cigarette with distaste. “It’s a vice. I keep thinking I’ll quit, but then I tell myself I have to wait for a time that isn’t too stressful or else it won’t work, but there’s no time that isn’t a little stressful, so…”

Cosette, with a flaw. It’s almost a relief, like Eponine feels a little less like a smear of dirt when compared with her.

“Anyway,” Cosette is saying, “seriously, come in. I’ll get you some coffee, we haven’t seen you around in ages!”

She’s already backing away. “No, no, I’ve really got to get home.” It’s half-true. She doesn’t particularly _want_ to get home, but Azelma is there and she doesn’t really like leaving Azelma alone with Montparnasse.

“Wait,” Cosette steps after her, further into the rain. Her cigarette goes out and she flicks it to the ground. “You’re walking home from here? That’s a long way.”

“Car’s broken down,” she mumbles, which is a lie. The car just needs gas, but she can’t afford gas right now. Tuition bills were due, and rent, and Azelma needed a new coat. Priorities.

Cosette bites her lip. “Listen, Eponine, if you can wait for like 45 minutes I’m off--I have Marius’ car, I can drive you home. It’s freezing out. You don’t even have a jacket.”

She tries to weigh the agony of waiting with Cosette for 45 minutes and being home late against how good a cup of coffee would taste. She’s barely eaten anything today.

“Please, Eponine, let me help.” 

“Okay,” she says softly, and follows Cosette through the back door.

Cosette pulls her toward the counter instead of her usual corner table, to a chair at the bar strewn with the day’s newspapers and dirty napkins. She makes a face. “Haven’t been able to tidy up much today. Busier than normal. Sorry! What kind of coffee do you want?”

“Uh--” Musichetta usually just gives her free coffee, but she doesn’t know how to bring that up with Cosette, who probably expects her to pay for a drink. She thinks about the ten dollar bill in her wallet that has to get her until the end of next week. If she stays at home all weekend and eats plain pasta, she can afford a coffee.

“Just coffee,” she says and Cosette shakes her head. “I just emptied out one of the pots cause it’s close to closing time and the one left got brewed a while ago. Do you like chai? I make the best chai in town.”

She gulps. She wants to argue, but she also doesn’t want to hurt Cosette’s feelings, which is strange considering she hated her five minutes ago. Still hates her? She can’t tell.  “Uh, a small one?”

Cosette grins and turns away. Eponine tries to wring out the sodden hem of her shirt without making it obvious that she’s making a puddle on the floor. Cosette clucks worryingly when she turns back. “I can’t help with the pants,” she says, “but I know there are some sweaters in the back room that no one ever claimed from lost and found, feel free to go grab one and change.”

She thinks about refusing, but in the end there’s no point. She’s freezing and if she’s accepted one kindness she might as well accept more. She drags herself to the back room and pulls on a soft, warm sweater, a light shade of green. There’s a splatter of what looks like ink on one of the cuffs and the tag has been cut off. It looks worn, well-loved. She feels bad for whoever left it behind. When she gets back to the bar there’s a steaming cup of chai and a croissant waiting. The croissant is warm, stuffed with sundried tomatoes and cheese. She’s never smelled anything better. Cosette sweeps up crumbs from beneath the tables on the other side of the room. She’s distracted, humming to herself. Eponine shoves half the pastry in her mouth before she turns around, dogged by the strange idea that someone is about to snatch it away the moment she starts to taste it.

She tries to pay, before they leave, holding out that precious ten dollars. Cosette shakes her head and shrugs. “I already shut down the till,” she says, pulling on her rain jacket. “You can buy me a drink sometime, how about?”

She knows it’s charity, because Cosette could reopen the till in less than a minute, but instead she says “thank you”, and tucks the bill back into her pocket.

 

*

“Are you...okay?” Cosette asks her, pulled up in front of the apartment building, flat light from the streetlamp throwing her face into a sharp profile. She looks straight ahead, like she doesn’t want to meet Eponine’s eyes, like she knows everything, can see beneath her layers of clothing to her skin, beneath her skin to the raw, exposed muscles of her heart.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, and slides out of the car, back into the rain. “Thanks.”

 

*

Montparnasse fails her eventually, and hits Azelma, hard across the face and Eponine packs a backpack and leaves with her that night, showing up at Grantaire’s door at an ungodly hour of the morning because she remembers him mentioning they have a free room.

“It doubles as the laundry room and you’re going to hate it,” he says which is annoying because you’d think he’d be more supportive, but he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week so she forgives him.

“I don’t even care,” she says, because it’s true, she doesn’t, she can’t care anymore about anything because she’s just _so tired_. “As long as it’s not with him, or any other fucking man who feels as though he has some sort of fucking  _say_ over what I do with my life. I can handle laundry. I love laundry.”

She forgets, in her panic and subsequent relief to be away from Montparnasse, that Grantaire just happens to live in a house with Cosette. And Marius. Who are, after all, a couple. Who spend a lot of time together in each others’ rooms. Who sometimes do things that any couple would do, but as it happens, Marius’ room is right next to Eponine and Azelma’s, and, yes. She can hear them.

So it’s better. But somehow, so much worse.

 

*

Marius tries to talk to her, but he’s never been much good at talking. Especially not about feelings. She still thinks he never quite realized how much she liked (likes) him, though he’s awkward enough it seems like he knows something. But, then again, that might just be Marius. Awkward.

Poor kid. She almost pities him. Would, if she wasn’t so pathetically obsessed with him herself.

“You’re my best friend, Ep,” he says to her one night as she’s stress baking vegan chocolate chip cookies (one good thing about this new place--there are always baking ingredients and root vegetables and leftovers laying around and free for anyone to use--no more seeing how long she can make it on just a used teabag, no more ramen for weeks at a time, no more stretching the tiniest amounts of money just to make sure Azelma, at least, can eat).

“You too,” she says, back turned, not making eye contact. She thinks her voice is schooled into an appropriately dispassionate tone, though she can hear her own strain.

“I’m really glad you’re living here,” he says, coming to stand next to her and giving her a side hug. She winces. He pauses in the middle of stealing a bite of cookie dough.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she lies, as she always does. “I’m fine.”

 

*

Cosette catches her at the strangest moments, the moments when she’s seconds from a breakdown, or staring at herself blankly in the mirror, or looking at her bank statements and just starting to feel tears building in her eyes, or thinking, traitorously, about Montparnasse. She catches her and invites her to watch a movie, or help bake some bread, or walk along the river. And, now that they’re living in the same house, the panic she used to feel when she saw Cosette has faded slightly and instead she feels...comforted? Happier? She can talk to Cosette, not that she ever talks to her about anything really important, but she can talk to her openly. And Cosette makes her laugh. She can’t remember the last time she laughed this regularly. Maybe when she first met Grantaire?

It’s raining outside, slowly turning to sleet, one night late in November when Cosette passes by the kitchen where Eponine stands by the sink, looking blankly out the window into the cold, dead, backyard. She ducks into the kitchen to join her.

“Hey,”

“Hey.” Eponine replies, eyes on the garden. Cosette puts down the armful of laundry she’s carrying and comes to stand next to her.

“You doing okay?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” she asks, rather irritably. Cosette touches her gently on the shoulder.

“Because we care.”

“Well then, no, not really. I don’t like winter much. I hate watching everything die. I hate the darkness and the cold.”

“Me too,” Cosette says. “I get seasonal depression really bad.”

She resists the urge to turn to her and say “ _really_?” because of all people she should know that anyone can suffer from that sort of thing, no matter how cheerful and well-adjusted they appear on the outside. Still, it’s surprising.

“Hey,” Cosette says, stepping away slightly, to Eponine’s relief. “Jehan brought in a massive pumpkin yesterday, did you see it in the basement?”

She nods. It’s taking up most of the pantry.

Cosette grins, looking suddenly excited. “Let’s make a pie.”

“What, right now?”

“Sure! Come on, Ep, it’s not like you go to bed before 2 AM anyway, and we’ll be done before midnight!” Cosette has taken to calling her “Ep”, the way her closest friends do, and she hasn’t stopped her from doing it yet.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “I’ve never made a pumpkin pie. I’ve always thought it was a weird American thing.”

“Neither have I!” Cosette says, and giggles. “We’ll learn together!”

And they do. It takes both of them to haul the pumpkin up the stairs and they have to dismantle it in the backyard in the sleet with an axe, and then they burn the first batch of custard and have to start again, and the pie crust is a cracked disaster, but they’re laughing the whole time and at the end of it (1 AM), they have a passable pie that they consider leaving be till morning, and instead start eating out of the tin with forks. The night ends with them in the living room, watching re-runs of the Great British Baking Show, pie tin empty on the floor in front of them. They’re pressed close together and Eponine is sort of falling asleep leaning against Cosette and she wonders where Marius is, but not enough to ask. They both wake up there the next morning, and Cosette smiles at her and squeezes her hand and tells her she had fun last night, and Eponine doesn’t quite know what to think, but finds her bad mood evaporated for the next three days straight.

 

*

“What are you doing for Christmas?”

Cosette’s leaned up against the dryer, halfway through loading it. Marius is helping Eponine change her sheets, holding down the edge of the fitted sheet as she tries to stretch it over the corners. She’s caught off guard, and mumbles something about never really celebrating it as she fumbles, cursing, with the sheet.

“Oh,” Cosette says, cheeks flushing. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed--”

“No, no,” she hastens to correct, “I mean, I don’t have anything _against_ it, in theory. I just don’t like going back to my parent’s, and we never really celebrated when I was growing up ‘cause they were...well, shitty.”

“What about Gavroche?” Marius asks, standing back from the bed as she finally manages to secure the sheet. She sighs as she shakes out the topsheet.

“I’m hoping to get him away from my parents for the day. Maybe bring him over here. We’ve got a tree now, so it would be nice.” Grantaire and Bossuet, neither of whom celebrate Christmas, had nevertheless brought home a Charlie Brown tree a few days ago that was currently propped up between boxes and stacks of books in the living room, shedding needles and decorated with a motley collection of crafted ornaments, strings of lights scrounged from various people’s rooms, and popcorn garlands. It’s festive, she has to admit.

Cosette shoots Marius a look. He gives an almost imperceptible nod. Eponine looks back and forth between them. Cosette clears her throat. Marius toes at the fraying rug she’s laid down to beat the chill of the basement floor.

“Well,” Cosette says, “I’m going to spend Christmas with my dad. And Marius is coming, too. But it’s only about forty minutes away, so I was thinking...we were wondering...well, if you’d like to come, too.”

“And Azelma and Gavroche, obviously,” Marius adds.

“I--” Eponine says, completely shocked, “I--what?”

“You. Coming for Christmas.”

“I. Have to work?”

Cosette sighs. “I know, Ep, that’s why I said it’s only forty minutes away. Come for Christmas Eve and Christmas, I _know_ the restaurant’s closed those days so you _can’t_ work. Then you can drive back.”

“With what car?”

“You can borrow mine,” Marius says. “Or, I might come back with you, too. I might try to get in some hours at work between Christmas and the New Year, haven’t decided yet.”

“I--” she sputters, “um--I don’t know what to say?”

“Say you’ll come!” Cosette says, clasping her hands together. “Oh, Eponine, I just don’t want you to be here alone or anything--”

“I won’t be alone,” she says automatically.  _Am I physically incapable of not arguing,_ she asks herself as she speaks. “Grantaire’ll be here, and I’m worried about him so I should stay here, and Bahorel will be here too, and I’ll be with Azelma and Gavroche, obviously.”

“Bahorel’s going climbing and he’s trying to get Grantaire to go with him,” Marius counters. “Come on, Ep, it’s only two days.”

She sighs, relenting slightly. “I’ll ask Azelma and Gavroche how they feel.”

Cosette squeals and claps her hands. Marius grins at her. “Great!” he says, like it’s decided. “We’ll have fun, I promise.”

Obviously, Azelma and Gavroche agree. Azelma says she’d rather be out of the depressing house and eating actual food than “sitting around here with you sulking and Gavroche bouncing off walls”, which Eponine finds vaguely offensive, but ignores, and Gavroche is so excited at the prospect of spending two full days in the company of Marius he practically combusts. The kid loves Marius.

So, of course, they all end up piled in Marius’ car on the night of the 23rd, speeding towards Cosette’s father’s house, a man Eponine has never met and never expected to, to spend two full days with a functional family, the boy she’s still in love with, and the girl he’s dating. She practically has a panic attack in the back seat, but there’s not enough time to fully get into it before they’re pulling into a driveway in front of a huge house.

Alright, so Eponine knew Cosette was wealthy, but _this_? This is a mansion. A full-on fucking mansion. Eponine has never in her life set foot into a home that was larger than 600 square feet, except for the house where she lives now with ten other people. According to Cosette, her dad lives here alone, now that Cosette’s moved out. Eponine can’t imagine what he does with all the space.

“What does your dad do again?” Azelma asks as they get out of the car, staring in awe at the house in front of them. Eponine steps on her foot. She glares at her. “What was that for?”

“Don’t be rude,” she hisses.

“That wasn’t rude! I just want to know.”

Cosette laughs. “It’s okay. He’s a stockbroker.” She rolls her eyes. “I know, I know. We argue about it plenty. He does give a lot of what he makes to charity, and he divested from trading with anything to do with fossil fuels a few years ago, but…” she shrugs and sighs, a clear “what can you do?” look on her face.

“ _I_ think he’s quite admirable,” Marius says.

“Of course you do, babe,” Cosette says, patting him on the shoulder. “Well, shall we?”

Eponine gulps. “Sure.”

She trails the rest of them up the path to the front door and hangs back as Cosette’s father--Jean, he insists on being called--greats them all enthusiastically, hugging Cosette, shaking Marius’ hand, and Gavroche’s, when he offers it. He greets Eponine warmly, clasping her hand in his and smiling. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” he says, suggesting he’d heard about her. Has Cosette mentioned her to him? Why? She smiles back, feeling her mouth stretching unnaturally. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

 

*

He feeds them, though it’s close to 10 pm and she’s about to drop dead from the double shift she did today. He plies them with crusty bread and soup and salad and a fruit tart at the end of it and she eats mechanically, answers questions, smiles when she has to. Cosette sits close to her. Sometimes their shoulders brush, or their knees.

 

*

She wakes late the next morning. When she stumbles out of bed and down towards where she remembers the kitchen is, briefly getting lost in the warren of hallways, she finds Cosette alone, reading through a physics textbook and nursing a cup of tea. She’s wearing pajama pants patterned with snowmen and her hair is a rat’s nest and she feels something in her chest snap tight, like a rubber band stretched and let go.

She must make some sort of sound because Cosette starts, and turns, smiling at her standing in the doorway. “Hey. Want some tea?”

She nods, not trusting herself to speak, and walks over to the teapot on the counter.

“Mugs are in the upper left cupboard, next to your head,” Cosette instructs from the table, and she forces herself into deep breathing exercises as she pours the tea, adds some milk, stirs it. She sits down carefully at the table and refuses to meet Cosette’s eyes.

“Where is everyone?”

“Dad’s helping out at the community center today, they’re doing a Christmas Eve dinner, and Marius and Gavroche went to with him. Azelma’s still asleep, I’d assume.”

“Oh.” She stares into her tea.

Cosette pushes a plate of cinnamon rolls towards her, covered in sticky looking icing. “Eat. This is the unhealthiest food you’ll get while we’re living at that house.”

Eponine huffs out a laugh and reaches for one. They’re still slightly warm. “They’re good,” she says.

“Dad made them. He’s a better baker than I am.”

“That’s hard to believe.” The words are out before she realizes she’s said them. Cosette looks up at her in surprise. Eponine isn’t known for complimenting people.

“I mean,” she tries to cover her tracks. “I just mean, you’re always baking stuff. And it’s usually pretty good.” She can feel her cheeks warm and knows she’s blushing.

“Oh. Well. Thanks,” Cosette replies, brow slightly furrowed. Eponine doesn’t know why she agreed to come here. She should have known, given the strange stirrings in her stomach whenever she’s hung out with Cosette recently, that it could only spell trouble. She’s still blushing. Cosette looks at her strangely. Her eyes are so pretty, dark brown shot through with gold.

“Are you okay, Ep?”

“I’m fine,” she lies, and turns back to the cinnamon roll.

 

*

She doesn’t have many positive Christmas memories, but there are a few, from when she was really young, from before her parents fully completed their transformations into the utter wastes of space they are now. She remembers holding her father’s hand, following him into a church decorated with garlands of evergreen and holly, a giant Christmas tree standing by the altar, Azelma a tiny baby in her mother’s arms. She remembers singing carols, her father’s voice, strong and steady, booming out above her. She remembers the oranges and candy canes all the children received, tucked into paper bags, remembers sucking on that candy cane slowly as they walked home through snow. She remembers eating Christmas dinner, she remembers small trees and small presents, carefully wrapped by her mother. She remembers her father making mulled wine and her parents laughing late into the night on Christmas Eve, drinking it.

And the next year, the wine wasn’t mulled and there was a lot more of it, and though they still went to church and sang the carols, when they got home there was no tree and fewer presents and her mother yelled at Azelma when she started crying and Eponine sat with her on the couch, staring at the candles flickering on the table and listening to their parents arguing in the kitchen….

And after that, there weren’t many good Christmas memories at all.

 

*

They go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Cosette tells her they don’t have to go if they don’t want to, but her father is a pious man and the tradition is important to him. Eponine agrees to go, even though Azelma whines about it. She stands between Marius and Azelma and sings the carols. She remembers all the words, even the ones that are in Latin. Halfway through the service, Marius turns to her with a smile. “Your voice is so good,” he tells her, “you should sing more often”. He squeezes her hand. At midnight, the church bells start to ring, announcing Christmas day, loud and joyful, reverberating through her body. She closes her eyes and listens.

 

*

She had warned both Azelma and Gavroche that there wouldn’t be presents, that they didn’t have money, and had squirreled away change since the summer to buy them each something small--a new hat for Gavroche, from some skateboarding company he loves, a book for Azelma that she’d wanted to read for awhile. But on Christmas morning, she’s shocked to see presents under the tree addressed to all three of them--a few more for Gavroche, another for Azelma, and, shockingly, four with her name on them. At first she thinks it must be a mistake, and stares at them for a long while.

“Some of our roommates got you things,” Cosette tells her, when she notices what she’s looking at. “I brought them with us, so you could open them now.”

She opens her mouth, closes it. She doesn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected this. True, Grantaire had given her a small gift the last few Christmases, and last year, her first year of being involved in Les Amis, they’d done a holiday gift exchange, much to Enjolras’ disapproval of so-called “capitalist holidays”. But four is...a lot.

Cosette hands her one of them, a large box. She holds it in her hands for a moment, looking. Next to her, Azelma tears the wrapping paper off the book and whoops, giving Eponine a side hug.

“Open it,” Marius encourages.

She opens it slowly, trying to keep the wrapping paper intact. She’s used the same wrapping paper for the last three years, saved from the careful deconstruction of gifts. Something in her twists a bit, an anger she buries deep, something tired and furious that strains against the simple fact she can’t afford a five-dollar roll of new wrapping paper every few years. She jerks at the tape and the paper tears lengthwise. Unusable.

The box is plain white, no hint to what’s inside. She opens it and pulls out piles of tissue paper packed around a brown leather bag, simple but beautifully made. She’s been staring at this bag through the window of a clothing store near campus for the last four months, longing for it--for just one nice thing, her only purse is worn through and falling apart--but too afraid to even go inside and ask for the price. She’s almost too afraid to touch it. She looks up. Cosette and Marius are grinning at her.

“Do you like it?”

“Is it…” she trails off, staring at it. “Is it from you?”

“We went in on it together,” Marius says.

“Why?”

Cosette rolls her eyes. “Honestly, Eponine. Because it’s Christmas. Because you never treat yourself. Because your purse is falling apart. Because we _wanted to_.”

“It’s too expensive,” she whispers.

“You told me you’d never even gone in to look at it,” Cosette says, and Eponine remembers walking by that store with her a few weeks ago, idly commenting that she loved the bag in the window, laughing it off when Cosette asked her if she’d ever gone in. It was a passing moment, a side comment. And Cosette remembered, and went back.

“Thank you,” she whispers, still unable to touch it. The brown leather shines slightly in the lights on the Christmas tree. Azelma sticks her head over Eponine’s shoulder. “Pretty!” She says. “It suits you!”

Eponine smiles, immediately feels guilty. “Thank you,” she says again. “I...er...didn’t get you anything, really.” She’d made cards for everyone, collaged with scraps of paper and stamps. She’d folded a pair of earrings she found at an art fair into Cosette’s, but there was nothing in Marius’. Her stomach curls uncomfortably.

“Yeah you did,” Marius says, “and besides, it doesn’t matter.”

She slides the box off her lap and stands, moving over to them both and giving them a hug. She can feel Marius stiffen. How long have they known each other? And she can’t remember ever giving him a hug. She can feel his heartbeat, next to Cosette’s, from where they’re pressed together.

“Thank you,” she says again, and Cosette’s arm, around her back, squeezes her tightly.

The rest of the presents are small, an art print from Grantaire, a poetry book from Jehan, and a soft sweater that Azelma and Gavroche had clearly pooled their money to buy. Christmas carols boom from the speakers in the living room and Cosette’s dad keeps on bringing out plates of cookies and bowls of nuts and chocolates and they sit around the Christmas tree for hours, whiling away the time, stuffing themselves and talking. She finds herself squeezed onto the loveseat next to Cosette and Marius, pressed against Cosette yet again, but she can’t find it in herself to feel uncomfortable or awkward, so she just lets it happen. Outside, a light flurry of snow falls, a layer of white covering the lawn and the bare tree branches in the front yard. Marius runs to the window when he sees it and bounces on the balls of his feet like a little kid, grinning with excitement. “White Christmas!” he says, happily. “I love a white Christmas!” Next to her, Cosette rolls her eyes and grins, and the snow keeps falling.

Late in the afternoon, they all pile outside into the massive backyard, bundled up in hats and scarves and gloves. Marius immediately loses his hat to a well-aimed snowball from Gavroche, and Eponine watches his ears turn red in the cold, the way his eyes crinkle as he laughs, chasing Gavroche in circles, pelting snowbells of his own. Cosette tackles him and shoves snow down the back of his shirt and he shrieks, wrestling with her. For all the years she’s known him, he’s been so quiet and reserved, awkward. Always kind, always a little sparkle in his eyes that never quite went out, but now he’s so exuberant, so full of life, so ready to laugh, so much more willing to take up space without apologizing for it.

It’s a transformation she knows began when he met Cosette and continued when he started attending meetings and letting himself get to know the rest of the group, encouraged by Cosette. All at once, standing in the backyard, snowflakes dotting her face like freezing tears, all the remaining anger, all the resentment, any last part of her that still felt hatred towards Cosette, or towards Marius for choosing her, drains away. She’s left standing there, a curious emptiness echoing loud where the anger used to be, rattling around her chest.

She’s a selfish person, she knows this, always has. She takes what she can from situations and molds it, like a potter with their clay, into something she can use to her advantage. She’s not ashamed of it. It’s how she endured her parents, it’s how she got Azelma away from them, it’s how she dealt with Montparnasse for so many years, it’s how she can take a fifty-dollar paycheck and stretch it across a full month. It’s how she’s survived and come out fighting for all 23 years of her shitty life. But here, for a moment, she feels briefly guilty. How many months has she wasted in jealousy and anger over Cosette and Marius when really, she should have just been happy for them? She's made her choices, they've made theirs. It's a waste to be angry over the result.

She’s jolted from her thoughts by a snowball to the face. Shrieks of laughter erupt from all sides, and she can tell Marius is the guilty party by his raised arm and the look of shock on his face. His hand/eye coordination is famously terrible, and she’s surprised he made the hit, too, although she had been standing stock-still, zoned out, an easy target. She bends down, scoops up some snow, and runs towards him. He looks alarmed for a moment and turns to run away, but she’s faster than him, and she jumps on his back, smashing the snow into his face and bearing him to ground. They’re both laughing; Gavroche, yelling, piles on top of them and smears snow over them all; Cosette and Azelma laugh, dancing around them, throwing more snow; and soon they’re all rolling around on the ground, soaked and frozen and laughing, laughing.

 

*

That night, after dinner, she, Marius and Cosette sit in front of the fire in the living room, clutching mugs of eggnog spiked liberally with brandy. She hasn’t drunk in what’s felt like ages, trying to be supportive of Grantaire as he struggles to quit, so the alcohol hits harder than usual, but she doesn’t mind. She’s warm and satisfied and happy, and she doesn’t have to return to normal life until tomorrow morning, so she’s going to put off thinking about it till then.

Marius clears his throat. “So, Ep,” he says, “Um, we wanted to talk to you.”

She stiffens. What will he say?  _It’s kind of weird the way you’ve been cuddling with my girlfriend_ or _maybe we shouldn’t be spending this much time together_ or _I know you’re still into me and it’s pretty awkward now so maybe you should move out of the house_?

“Um,” he says, “Uh.”

Cosette rolls her eyes. “Nice start, Marius,” she says, then turns toward Eponine and takes her hand.

“Eponine,” she says, “We’ve been thinking. We both like you. A lot.”

“Okay,” she says, wondering why Marius looks so terrified. “I mean, thanks. I like you guys too.”

“I mean,” Cosette says, staring into her eyes (such a searching gaze with those brown-gold irises, the long lashes, the reflection of the fire in them, she’s not listening to what Cosette is saying, not listening at all…)

“What do you think?” Cosette asks. She jerks back to reality, tearing her gaze away.

“What?”

Marius groans softly. “I knew this would happen.”

“What would happen?” She’s confused.

“You’d think we’re crazy.”

Cosette bites her lip and stares at Eponine entreatingly. “It’s not that strange,” she says, “a lot of people do it.”

“Do _what_?” She’s really missing something.

“Do _that_!” Marius stutters. “What she just said! Date more than one person!”

“I-- _excuse me_?”

Cosette sighs. “Did you not hear me?”

“I kind of zoned out,” she admits and Cosette sighs again, and Marius hides his face in his hands.

“Okay,” Cosette says, “Okay. Okay, _listen_. What I _said_ is, we really like you, in a, like, romantic context. Like, a kissing, get in bed together,  _dating_ context. And we were wondering. If. You wanted to to do. That.” She finishes the sentence haltingly, blushing furiously.

Eponine is speechless. She opens her mouth. Tries to make words come out. Closes it. Opens it again. All she can produce is a small, strangled noise.

“Oh, God,” Marius mutters, looking like he wants to melt into the floor.

“Are you asking,” she says, lips numb, hardly believing what she’s saying, “to have a _threesome_?”

“Um. In a manner of speaking. But not in, like, a hookup way. Like a dating threesome.”

“So,” Eponine says, laughing a little and wondering if she’s still asleep, or if there was a hell of a lot more brandy in the eggnog than she thought, “you’re saying that I would date _you_ ,” she points to Cosette, “and _him_ ,” she points to Marius, “and you two would also still be dating?”

Cosette bites her lip again. It’s very cute. “Um. Yes?”

“We all kiss each other.”

“Among other things,” Marius says softly, then looks mortified and immediately returns his gaze to his eggnog, looking like he’s rather wishing he could drown himself in it.

She laughs. Then she can’t stop laughing. Then it becomes the sort of laughing that isn’t really laughing anymore, it’s more like hyperventilating. “Holy shit you guys,” she gasps out between guffaws, “you’re joking, right? Like, this is a hallucination, right?”

Cosette looks crestfallen. Marius lets out a strangled sort of moan. “I told you I thought we should wait on it a bit longer,” he whispers to Cosette.

Cosette gingerly reaches out a hand and pats her on the back. “Um, don’t freak out. It’s fine if you don’t want to do it, we can pretend this conversation never happened and I swear nothing will change. Just--calm down. Eponine? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she gasps out, and then decides, what the hell, she might as well stop lying. “Actually, no I am not. I am not fine, I have not been fine, and this is not making me feel fine.” And, to her horror, her laughter turns to tears.

“Oh,” Cosette says, “Oh, Eponine, I’m sorry, we didn’t mean…” she trails off. Marius tears his eyes away from his eggnog and sets it on the floor, shuffling over to her other side and putting an arm around her shoulders. “Eponine, don’t cry, we’re sorry…”

“What are you sorry for?” she practically shrieks, and knows she sounds insane.

Marius looks taken aback and slightly frightened. “Well, for being presumptuous, we read into what you might be feeling and just assumed…”

“You didn’t assume anything,” she says, and kisses him.

And she’s wanted to do it for so long and finally, his lips are warm under hers and, after he jerks with surprise, he draws her closer to him and next to them Cosette lets out a little whoop of laughter and presses closer to Eponine, and it’s just as good as she always knew it would be, even though Marius is still a bit slack with shock and barely kissing back.

She pulls away. “I’ve liked you for so long. You have no idea. And you,” she turns to Cosette, “you’re just...you’re just…”

Cosette looks worried, like she wonders if maybe Eponine only really wants to kiss her boyfriend and boot her out of the equation altogether and Eponine is loathe to admit--probably never will admit, to her face--that yes, originally that was very much what she wanted, but that feels so long ago now, and the thought of being able to reach out and touch Cosette--her hair, her cheekbone--is delicious, so that’s what she does, finally finishing her sentence: “you’re just... _perfect_.”

Cosette blushes prettily and bites her lip again, like she’s making a decision, and then she surges forward and kisses Eponine and Eponine hasn’t kissed a girl in a long time, though she’s thought about it a lot, and she’s forgotten how soft girls’ lips are, how well they mold into her own, and Cosette...Cosette really knows what she’s doing when it comes to kissing. She moans into her mouth and reaches out to her, Marius’ arm still tight around her shoulders, and then they’re all kind of on the floor in a heap, but it’s a nice heap, a sort of sexy heap because there are a lot of hands going everywhere and lips dropping kisses, and Cosette’s hair is in her face and Marius’ knee is in her stomach but she doesn’t ever, ever want to move.

There’s a sound from the doorway, a sort of gasp, and they all pull away from each other, panicked, staring around.

Azelma stands on the threshold, hands over her face, beet red. “Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god.”

“Uh,” says Marius.

“Oh!” says Cosette.

“Get out of here!” says Eponine.

Azelma glares at her through parted fingers. “This better not make things weird at home,” she says, “but, for what it’s worth, I’m glad you guys finally figured it out. The sexual tension was getting unbearable.” Then she turns tail and flounces down the hallway.

The three of them stare at each other, panting slightly. Marius’ eggnog glass is on its side, contents spreading across the rug. Cosette’s hair is a mess and her makeup is smudged. Eponine is sure she looks no better, but she can’t bring herself to care. Marius’ hand is tight around her own and Cosette is sitting half on her lap and she thinks, _this, yes, this is how it’s supposed to be, warm and exhilarating and comforting_ and she grins at them both.

“You didn’t,” Cosette says, pausing to catch her breath, “you didn’t actually say yes.”

“Are you kidding me?” Eponine says. “Given this isn’t actually a hallucination, I am definitely saying _yes_.”

“Verbal communication and consent is very important to us,” Marius says earnestly from behind her.

“That’s wonderful, and I appreciate it,” she says, truthfully, “but don’t go all Enjolras on me right now. I was just starting to have a nice time.” She reaches for him, and he comes to her, and they all fall together and for once, for the first time in such a long, long time, she is fine.

 

*

It’s months later, in early April, when she asks Marius. Spring has swept over them at last, grass greening, the patch of crocus on the edge of the yard bursting into purple blossom, seeds sprouting up in egg cartons in the shed Jehan has converted into a greenhouse. They’re sitting together at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, the only ones home. They’re not talking, just existing in the other person’s silence; existing together.

“How long?” Marius asks, out of the blue. She startles, looking up at him. “How long what?”

“On Christmas, when we…” he trails off, blushing bright, then clears his throat. “Well, you said to me ‘I’ve liked you for so long’. How long?”

“Oh,” she says, blushing herself. “Well, I guess...pretty much since I’ve known you?” She stares into her coffee.

Marius is quiet for a moment. Then he reaches across the table and rests the tips of his fingers on her hand where it lies next to her coffee. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugs. “You didn’t feel the same. And besides, I was a mess. I couldn’t handle it, not back then.”

His voice sounds slightly strangled. “How do you know how I felt?”

She looks up at him quickly. “You didn’t seem to want anything to do with me. You hung out with me when you had to and got out of my company as quickly as you possibly could, right? I mean, it just didn’t seem…” She trails off. Marius is shaking his head.

“No,” he says, “no, I didn’t. I’m awkward, you know that, but I didn’t _not like you_ , I didn’t...I mean, would I have loaned you money or invited you over or anything like that if I didn’t?”

She shakes her head slowly. “I always felt like I invited myself over.”

“You didn’t. I wanted...I liked you fine. A lot.”

She’s quiet for a moment, staring at him. She’s not sure what she’s supposed to say. Finally, she unsticks her tongue from the roof of her mouth and asks: “What are you saying?”

He sighs, flushing even redder. “I’m saying...I mean, I liked you, too. Since I’ve known you. But I didn’t...I didn’t know how to deal with it, or what to do, and then you started hanging out with Montparnasse and didn’t talk to me much anymore, and I just...I just figured I lost my chance, you know?”

She gapes at him. “ _You_ lost _your_ chance?”

He looks sad. “I thought you weren’t interested anymore. And even when things got complicated last year, and Cosette and I started talking about stuff, I thought...well, I figured it was all just ‘cause you were interested in her, and I didn’t have much to do with it.”

She can’t think what to say, so she continues staring. Eventually, she manages, “Marius, you are _such_ an idiot.”

He frowns. “Well, you didn’t do anything about it either. So we both are.”

She huffs a laugh, then thinks about it, and laughs harder. “God,” she says, “yeah, I guess you’re right.” She turns her hand on the table to cup his. “Good thing Cosette came and sorted us both out.”

He smiles at her, that shy smile she first caught a glimpse of so many years ago, that smile she stored away in her memory and brought out to examine so many times, that smile she thought for so long she’d never get to see again. These days, she sees it day after day, a gift every time.

“Yeah,” he says, and smiles wider, the lines around his eyes crinkling, blush still riding high in his cheeks. “Thank God for Cosette.”

Cosette finds them when she gets home a few minutes later, twined together on the same chair, just holding each other, coffee forgotten and grown cold in front of them. She pulls off her jacket, dark eyes twinkling, and envelopes them both from behind, kissing them on their cheeks with her warm lips.

“Oh, good,” she says, “it’s just what I needed.”

And it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas! This has been rattling around in my files for awhile and I thought I'd polish it up and turn it into some Christmas fluff 'cause we all need a little bit of that. This takes place in the context of my longer les mis fic "Buen Viaje" and references some of the events in that. I wanted to flush out Eponine's story a bit 'cause I love that lady.
> 
> Title is from Beirut's song "Port of Call".


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